Surfrider Foundation

Officials of the Ventura County Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation are scheduled to present their third annual luncheon and fund-raiser Saturday at the Chart House restaurant, chapter officials announced. The event, to be held from noon to 3 p.m., will feature a luncheon menu of blackened swordfish with all the trimmings, according to chapter spokesman Bruce MacDonald. Admission is $10. During the event, a silent auction will be held.

Make Up For Ever has launched a series of small group lessons to teach customers some of the tricks of professional makeup application. The classes are $25 each, and sessions are scheduled at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. on Mondays through the end of July at the makeup company's Topanga boutique, at Westfield Topanga mall, 6600 Topanga Canyon Blvd. Each 90-minute class is limited to 10 students, who are instructed on application techniques and encouraged to practice so they can easily recreate the looks on their own. Students also receive a personal color consultation and a follow-up phone call from a makeup artist to answer questions.

"We're absolutely stoked," said Teri Schulz, 27, speaking of her foundation's legal victory on Monday. "We went for clean water, and that's what we're going to get." Schulz is a surfer. She also is administrative director of the Surfrider Foundation, a 7-year-old environmental organization dedicated to protecting surf and shorelines. On Monday, the foundation announced legal concessions that it had won from two pulp mills which had been polluting waters in Northern California's Humboldt County.

SOLANA BEACH, Calif. - As befits its name, issues of sand and surf loom large in this seaside community north of San Diego. For more than three decades, controversy has surrounded the proliferation of privately built sea walls meant to protect bluff-top homeowners along the city's approximately 1.7 miles of oceanfront. Property owners say the walls are the only way to keep the pounding waves from inexorably undercutting the tall bluffs and imperiling their pricey homes. Environmentalists view the sea walls - built on public and private property - as abominations that shrink the beach and place private interests above the right of the public to enjoy the coast.

Nancy Gardner started riding horses on the beach and bluffs south of her home in Corona del Mar before there was any development on what was then called the Irvine Coast. It was the mid-1950s, and Gardner clearly remembers the dry canyons that cut through the cliffs of what is now Crystal Cove State Park. So when Gardner walked along the base of the cliffs as a member of the Surfrider Foundation during the spring of 1992, she was surprised to see a waterfall.

June 7, 1998 | JIM BENNING, Jim Benning's last article for the magazine was a profile of wave forecaster Sean Collins

To Pierce Flynn, for whom surfing is nothing less than a form of prayer, the rise overlooking Trestles is sacred. Early most mornings, he pedals through empty San Clemente streets, surfboard riding shotgun on his mountain bike, to this bluff above one of California's most popular surf spots. On days with curling waves, he'll cruise down the dirt trail, tug on his wet suit, paddle out and picture in the distance the big change about to unfold here.

What's a celebrated prosecutor to do when the job of his dreams opens up? For Senior Assistant Dist. Atty. Christopher Evans, who has brought some of Orange County's most notorious criminals to justice, there was no question. Evans, 44, will leave his post to become executive director of the Surfrider Foundation, a grass-roots environmental and surfing advocacy group.

California has three of the best urban beaches in the United States, according to a new report by the Surfrider Foundation, despite water quality woes. Newport Beach in Orange County, East Beach in Santa Barbara and Main Beach in Santa Cruz rank among the country's top 10 urban beaches--spots where there is a "peaceful coexistence" between healthy shorelines and urban development, according to the advocacy group's first State of the Beach Report.

More than three-fourths of Orange County's sewer agencies need financial and technical help to update their aging systems, according to a Surfrider Foundation study released Tuesday. The Laguna Beach and Trabuco Canyon water districts ranked among the least reliable and least efficient, while the Cypress, La Habra, La Palma and Rossmoor/Los Alamitos sewer districts received "straight A's."

There's a fully fun finhead fandango slated for Friday night at Ventura's newest nifty nightspot, the Midnight Hour. A zillion bands will be playing to benefit the local chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, an organization that opposes further pollution of the blue Pacific, construction that screws up the surf, and making us pay to park at our own beach--noble aims one and all. This gig sounds like a natural for Coral, two-thirds of whom are actually hard-core surfers.

SAN FRANCISCO - For decades, surfers, smelt fishermen and picnickers flocked to Martin's Beach - a crescent-shaped haven south of Half Moon Bay, backed by stunning cliffs. They paid a small entry fee to the family that ran the property for a century, and their good times were memorialized in bucolic postcards. Then in 2008 a new owner came along and barred the gate, spurring protests and a spate of litigation. That battle intensified Tuesday when a suit was filed on behalf of the Surfrider Foundation, alleging that the limited liability companies that own the land - with a Silicon Valley billionaire behind them - are in violation of the California Coastal Act. Helping to litigate the case is former Republican Rep. Pete McCloskey.

The L.A. County Lifeguard Assn. surf racing team has won its 25 th consecutive national championship , in a competition featuring more than 700 professional lifeguards from throughout the country . . . . Feast on unlimited oysters and Napa wine , all for $40, at Waterbar's 3 rd annual OysterFest on Aug 27. Proceeds benefit Surfrider Foundation . . . . Participants can choose from six different options in the 19 th ...

One of Southern California's most storied bridges isn't much to look at. Built in 1941, it's a mess of rusty bolts and rotting wood that is marred with graffiti and scorched by fire. The surface of its beams is as soft as balsa, and when a commuter train zooms across, the deck flexes ever so slightly, releasing a light shower of dirt. But the hundreds of mighty timbers driven deep into the ground move not a muscle. The old man still has sturdy legs. Officially, its name is Bridge 207.6.

With a hearing to determine the fate of a proposed toll road through south Orange County a few weeks away, the agency backing the project issued a report Wednesday arguing that the new road would adequately protect water quality at San Onofre State Beach. Plans proposed by the agency to protect the San Mateo Creek watershed and famous Trestles surf break from erosion and contaminated storm water "should do as good a job as needed," said Derrick Coleman, a senior project manager with environmental consulting firm Tetra Tech.

Your May 28 editorial, "Sore Winners," regarding the Coastal Commission, I believe missed an important point. The commission was voted into existence to protect the coast. Protecting the coast is the commissioners' job. The commission has a fairly strong law to carry out that mission. However, if the commissioners ignore the law, then I feel that they should not be on the commission. This is where I part company with your assessment of the commission's actions. We have one coast to protect.

Re "Water Plant Turned Down," Dec. 17: The Huntington Beach Planning Commission staff and City Council should be commended for expending the extra effort in studying the very complex issues in the environmental report for the proposed Poseidon desalination plant before rendering their decision. During extended drought periods, desalination plants, together with water conservation and water reclamation, are certainly worthy of serious consideration in order to continue to maintain a safe and reliable source of drinking water for our residents.

Where would you rather surf: at an artificial reef created by an environmental group, or a nearby sewage outflow pipe built by the city of Los Angeles? If you want to catch some waves, you'd better pick the pipe. The first artificial surf reef in North America, built by the Surfrider Foundation in September, has yet to produce a ridable wave.

SAN FRANCISCO - For decades, surfers, smelt fishermen and picnickers flocked to Martin's Beach - a crescent-shaped haven south of Half Moon Bay, backed by stunning cliffs. They paid a small entry fee to the family that ran the property for a century, and their good times were memorialized in bucolic postcards. Then in 2008 a new owner came along and barred the gate, spurring protests and a spate of litigation. That battle intensified Tuesday when a suit was filed on behalf of the Surfrider Foundation, alleging that the limited liability companies that own the land - with a Silicon Valley billionaire behind them - are in violation of the California Coastal Act. Helping to litigate the case is former Republican Rep. Pete McCloskey.

Re "El Morro Seeks to Stave Off Eviction," May 13: The article fails to mention that there is support from a large coalition of environmental groups for the state park plan for environmental restoration and public access at El Morro. Supporters include the Laguna Beach Chapter of Surfrider Foundation, Laguna Greenbelt, Laguna Canyon Conservancy, the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club, the Planning and Conservation League, Orange County Coastkeeper, Friends of the Irvine Coast, and Alliance to Rescue Crystal Cove.

A developer's plan to expand an old seawall along a picturesque stretch of beach in Dana Point has angered an environmental group that opposes what it calls the "armoring" of the state's coastline. Though the developers for the Dana Point Headlands project have received city approval, the Surfrider Foundation said the builders are taking advantage of a state law that permits repair or expansion of seawalls that protect an existing structure.